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AMERICAN NIGHTMARE SYNOPSIS
HOME AMERICAN NIGHTMARE Welcome to Night Springs, more precisely the remote locations near the fictional town in which Alan Wake has conjured upon the real Arizona landscape. In American Nightmare Alan is set to do battle with his doppleganger Mr. Scratch who is bound and determined to take from and destroy all that was Alan's life before his imprisonment in the Dark Place. Alan begins his journey deep in a canyon at a destroyed version of Bird Leg Cabin and must find his way to Night Springs. It is a relatively quiet trip through the canyon with only some minor encounters with any Taken. Soon Alan arrives at an oil derrick perched at the top of a large hill overlooking a motel and truck stop. There is not much happening at this point although you can explore the landscape more openly in Nightmare than in the original Alan Wake and finding the manuscript pages that are scattered about is more difficult because of this. It is this departure from the rigid linear path of old that allows American Nightmare to feel new although most of the game mechanics are essentially the same as the first game. After arriving at the oil derrick Alan quickly determines that he should make his way down to the motel and do a little investigating. Things heat up rapidly as all of a sudden the Taken take a much more keen interest in Alan's arrival in Night Springs and the familiar Alan Wake combat ensues. There is one major addition to the fray, actually an upgrading of an old foe, as the flock of possessed black birds can now solidify into a sort of zombie like creature which moves a far sight quicker than any zombie of recollection. Life for Alan will continue in this fashion for much of the game, especially when exploring the countryside can trigger random encounters at a moments notice (not much of the early warning system from the original game is present here). There are several locations along the road below the oil derrick, namely these consist of the Desert Shore Motel where most of the first acts gameplay is centered, the diner which hosts the largest remainder of the acts main story, the gas station/truckstop and an old railroad station thats sort of just there by itself. There is plenty of area to explore here with manuscripts to find which unlock special chests; each special chest requires a certain number of manuscript pages to be opened and they house some very special weaponry. Exploring the motel grounds introduces Alan to Emma Sloan, Night Springs mechanic and resident new age aficianado. Alan and Emma have a long discussion about his resemblance to another man who had thrown a party in one of the motel rooms and then run off to the diner. Emma does not know whether to trust Alan or not but agrees that there is a difference in the two demeanors and thus agrees to help Alan as much as she can. Alan's first task is to destroy the oil derrick in the hopes that this will close the portal allowing the Taken to enter this world (which is actually a dream world that has been transposed over a real place and its inhabitants). To do so he must collect several items in order to re-write the scene at the derrick which literally becomes an uphill battle as the Taken are not exactly keen on this idea at all. Upon completing this task the player is rewarded with one of the best moments in the game - a video of a satellite crashing to earth, taking out the oil derrick and making a fiery mess out of the entire hillside; all of this to the soundtrack of Kasabian's "Club Foot". Oh yeah, Alan has to make it back to the motel without getting crushed by debris or burned to death. Arriving back at the motel Alan finds Emma locked inside the garage with demented Taken trying to break down the doors. If not before, Alan is introduced to a new foe from the Dark Place and this one is big, mean and wielding a concrete saw. This is probably the first really intense struggle thus far, requiring Alan to be quick on his feet, keeping track of multiple enemies coming from several directions at once. The fight ends as suddenly as it began and Alan has another long talk with Emma, there are several long talks in American Nightmare. Eventually Alan heads off to the diner to see what evidence he can find of the other man. There is evidence of a fight just as Emma had said and Alan finds a set of keys to one of the motel rooms. He quickly goes back to the motel, opens the correct door and finds a dead guy with more keys. Picking up this set of keys transports Alan and the player to Act II. A note before we visit Act II; there are several TV sets available for Alan to interact with as well as some radios. The radios at this point in the game give interviews with Barry Wheeler and his new enterprise The Old Gods of Asgard's new album while the TV's become personal visits with Mr. Scratch and his insanity. Later in the game the radio interviews switch to talk of the upcoming film festival and Alice Wake's entry; the TV's are still possessed by Scratch. Act II takes Alan to the Mount Redtooth National Observatory. It is a note of interest at this point that Alan never actually goes to Night Springs, AZ. The locations that he visits are seemingly on the towns peripheral which reinforces the idea that his re-imagining of the scenes (and Mr. Scratch's altering of them) do not re-invent reality, they simply make use of some key elements within the underlying reality in which Alan's predicament plays out. In fact the game clearly starts some 14 miles outside of town insinuating the existence of a gap right from the very start. Now, at the Observatory, Alan meets the scientist Dr. Rachel Meadows who is perplexed by a strange alignment of the stars which seems to be emitting a signal of some sort. The problem at hand is that the telescope is broken, or sabotaged, and only portions of the signal can be recorded. There will be a strong play on de-javu as the game progresses and all of the characters, including Alan, will be greatly affected by it. This partial signal actually eludes to the sense of de-javu that is forth coming but it will not manifest its true impact for another Act yet. This deja-vu will actually be the saving grace of the game from the player's perspective as it still seems to this point to be a fast paced romp with little purpose to the story. This player was actually considering starting over just to see if I could collect all of the manuscripts and open all of the special cases but instead I saw it through to the end of Act III and was thankful that I did. After taking on Mount Redtooth's infestation of spiders and various forms of Taken, not to mention dodging a few quite intelligent inanimate objects Alan gets the telescope fixed and recieves the first copy of the signal. From here Alan is transported to the location of Act III; The Drive-In Theater. Now the active space of the main game play really opens up. There are several buildings located here including the big screen itself which will play an interesting visual part in the story, the projector house where the most important scene changing will take place, the front office where Alan meets Serena Valdivia (film maker/organizer of the film event and friend of Alice Wake), a souvinier shop and the power house. All of these are seperated by a very large parking area that Alan must traverse on several occasions as he moves through the area. This new area moves along in typical Alan Wake fashion (though at American Nightmare speeds) with some of the best, most intense action/combat scenes to date in the game. Alan must brave the possibility of electricution at the power house and the security system set up by Mr. Scratch at the projector house is simply awesome. There have been some puzzles to date but the best ones in American Nightmare take place here in Act III. Probably the most well designed puzzle of the entire game is at the power house where Alan must manipulate several valves in order to cross a concrete cooling pond and then time his escape back through the very same route. The fight outside the projector room is well worth the effort to stay in the game to this point as Alan must defeat waves of Taken appearing from portals centered around skewed oil derrick towers that rise up from the ground. It does not take long to figure out that he must also take out the towers while being attacked by the Taken. This is the best, heart pounding, camera swirling fight in the game and worth every second it took to get here. Once Alan has defeated the evil defenses set up by good ole Scratch he can enter the projector room and try to change the scene in an effort to defeat Scratch with the purity of light. Checking the manuscript (the signal) he recieved back at the Observatory, Alan begins to reset objects in the room according to the details on his page but alas he does not have enough information to complete the change. Darkness fills the room along with Mr. Scratch and his incessant ranting. Alan passes out. When he awakens his is once again in the black whirlwind of darkness that surrounds the destroyed Bird Leg Cabin and the small body of water that must represent a link to Cauldron Lake. Let the de-javu begin.